Boxes or cartons designed to facilitate dispensing of individual products or articles contained therein are known in the art. One example of a dispenser carton (such term being used herein for the sake of convenience without intent to limit) is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,593,908 to Desmonds, entitled “Dispenser Bin Carton.” The described dispenser bin carton has a movable bin front portion that is hingeably movable with respect to the front panel of the carton between a closed position (in which the carton is closed) and a bin delivery position (in which the bin front panel is pivoted away from the front panel to permit access to the contents of the carton). Only one dispenser opening, the bin front portion, is provided.
Dispenser cartons having more than one type of dispenser opening are also known. One example of a dispenser carton having two different dispenser openings is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,951,300 to Caille et al., entitled “Display Packaging.” The described packaging has a dispenser drawer similar to the bin front portion of the above-described patent to Desmonds. In addition, the packaging described in the Caille patent also has a removable section that may be removed to permit access to the contents of the packaging.
It will be appreciated that it may be preferable to load or to display certain articles or products (hereinafter “articles” for the sake of convenience, without intent to limit) in dispenser cartons in a predetermined, set orientation. For instance, elongated articles (e.g., lip balms, writing instruments, rolls of hard candy or other stackable individual comestibles, tampons, etc.) preferably are dispensed in a given orientation with respect to the dispenser opening. The known prior art dispenser cartons do not provide more than one dispenser opening permitting the articles therein to be dispensed through each of the multiple dispenser openings in a particular desired orientation.
Moreover, it will be appreciated that carton loading equipment, used to load products into a carton in an automated manner, may require the products to be oriented by the automated carton loading equipment in a predetermined, set orientation. The known prior art dispenser cartons thus present an added complication if the automated carton loading equipment must load the products in an orientation that does not correspond to or conform to the orientation desired for the products when dispensed through the one or more dispenser openings.
It therefore would be desirable to provide a dispenser carton with more than one dispenser opening, the openings being positioned along the carton to permit the desired orientation of products for loading the articles in a desired orientation and/or for dispensing the articles in a desired orientation through the dispenser opening.